Erling Haaland, Samson, and whether elite sports stars lose their powers when they shave their heads

Erling Haaland has cut off the hair that Zlatan Ibrahimovic warned was the source of his strength.

The former Sweden striker gave him that advice during the 2026 World Cup and on Sunday, Haaland failed to score in the first game he has played without the long blond hair that had become his trademark.

The 26-year-old Manchester City striker went for a buzzcut before his side’s opener against Bournemouth, then went goalless despite having five shots in a 2-1 victory. Before Sunday, he had scored in every Premier League opener he had played (seven goals in four games).

Ibrahimovic’s warning referred to Samson, the biblical figure who lost his strength when Delilah cut his hair. But from former Brazil striker Ronaldo to Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz and Tadej Pogacar, sport’s biggest names have produced very different results after reaching for the clippers.

Premier League titles, Grand Slams, Tour victories and a World Cup have all followed dramatic haircuts. So have losing seasons, early exits and sharp drops in form.

Haaland had considered cutting his hair after the World Cup, where he scored seven goals as Norway reached the quarter-finals in their first appearance at the competition for 28 years. In the video documenting the haircut, he described the new season as a “fresh start” but admitted Ibrahimovic’s warning had left him nervous.

He went through with the chop before the Premier League kicked off and called Ibrahimovic, 44, on FaceTime, only for the former Milan forward to ask if he had lost a bet.

Ronaldo was 25 when he began sporting arguably football’s most famous haircut at the 2002 World Cup. He had spent much of the previous two and a half years battling serious knee injuries, including a ruptured patellar tendon that left doubts over whether he would play at the highest level again, and had only returned to the Brazil team shortly before the tournament. 

Carrying a thigh problem before Brazil’s semi-final against Turkey and tired of questions about his fitness, Ronaldo shaved almost his entire head, leaving a patch above his forehead to distract journalists. He later told ESPN Brazil that speculation about his injury was duly replaced by questions about his hair.

The distraction did little harm to his comeback: Ronaldo scored the only goal against Turkey and both goals in Brazil’s 2-0 final victory over Germany, finishing the tournament with eight goals, the Golden Boot and a second World Cup winner’s medal. 

Within months, he had joined Real Madrid, scored twice on his debut and won the 2002 Ballon d’Or. His first season in Spain ended with La Liga and Intercontinental Cup titles.

Other footballers found changing hairstyles similarly painless. David Beckham, then 24, arrived for Manchester United’s game at Leicester City in March 2000 with his blond hair replaced by a close crop. He scored a free kick in a 2-0 victory. 

United went on to finish the season with 11 consecutive league wins and retain the Premier League by a then-record 18 points, with Beckham notching 15 assists, joint top for the division. The change also prompted talk that Beckham could lose his Brylcreem sponsorship, although the styling cream company insisted his contract was unaffected. 

Cristiano Ronaldo, then 32, provided another short-term argument against Samson when he scored twice and assisted another for Portugal in his first appearance after shaving his hair following Real Madrid’s 2017 Champions League triumph, before winning a fifth Ballon d’Or later that year.

For Jose Mourinho, the haircut was intended to have an effect before a ball had even been kicked. The then 43-year-old returned to Chelsea for pre-season in 2006 with a number one crop and said it made his face look “more aggressive”, describing himself as “ready for football and ready for war”.

The season that followed produced a more mixed verdict. Chelsea failed to win a third consecutive Premier League title, finishing six points behind Manchester United, and were dumped out of the Champions League in the semi-finals. 

Chelsea did, however, win both domestic cups, beating London rivals Arsenal in the League Cup final and United in the first FA Cup final at the rebuilt Wembley. It remains the only time that Chelsea have won those two competitions in the same season.

Before the 2002 NBA play-offs, a 23-year-old Kobe Bryant cut off the afro he had worn for more than five years, claiming he felt “a lot quicker”. He scored 34 points for the Los Angeles Lakers against Portland in his first game with the new look.

The Lakers eventually completed a third consecutive NBA championship, with Bryant averaging 26.8 points, 5.8 rebounds and 5.3 assists across their four-game Finals sweep of New Jersey.

Victor Wembanyama was looking for something rather more literal in January 2026. After San Antonio followed a one-point defeat in Minnesota by losing heavily to Oklahoma City, the 22-year-old and team-mate Keldon Johnson shaved each other’s heads. 

Wembanyama returned with 22 points and 10 rebounds as the Spurs beat Milwaukee 119-101 and ended their two-game losing run.

Michael Jordan provides the most famous long-term case. With his hair receding, Jordan shaved his head clean in 1989 and turned the look into one of the most recognisable images in sport. He led the NBA with 33.6 points per game the following season but Chicago again fell short against Detroit in the Eastern Conference finals. 

A year later, Jordan won the league MVP and scoring title, the Bulls won their first NBA championship, and he was named Finals MVP. Five more championships followed.

In 1995, a 24-year-old Andre Agassi arrived at the Australian Open with his head shaved, having spent the early part of his career with long hair that became central to his public image. 

He later revealed he had worn a hairpiece due to his receding hairline, but became so anxious about it coming loose that it distracted him during matches. Once rid of the hairpiece, Agassi produced the most successful season of his career. 

He reached the Australian Open final without dropping a set and beat Pete Sampras to win the title on his tournament debut. He became world No 1 for the first time three months later, and finished 1995 with seven titles and a 73-9 record.

Novak Djokovic’s post-haircut numbers were even more extreme. The 23-year-old and his Serbia team-mates won the Davis Cup for the first time in December 2010, and fulfilled a promise by shaving their heads in celebration. 

Djokovic then began 2011 by winning his first 41 matches. He finished the year 70-6, with three Grand Slams, five Masters 1000 titles, and ascended to the world No 1 ranking for the first time.

Alcaraz was 22 when his brother made a mistake with the clippers before the 2025 U.S. Open, leaving him with little choice but to shave most of his hair off. Alcaraz joked that he was “faster” without it and reached the final without dropping a set before beating Jannik Sinner in four to win his sixth Grand Slam and take the world No 1 ranking from the Italian.

The same theory reached the peloton this year when Pogacar first experimented with a closely shaved, bleached look before Strade Bianche, Tuscany, in March. He opened his season by attacking with almost 80 kilometres remaining, winning the race for a record fourth time.

The blond hair returned in a similarly short style for the Tour de France, where Pogacar joked that the cut made him “more aero”. The 27-year-old Slovenian then won five stages and a fifth yellow jersey to draw level with Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain for most overall Tour victories.

The sporting anecdotes appear reassuring for Haaland, but Patrick Mahomes provides a strong reason for caution. The Kansas City Chiefs quarterback was 29 when he shortened the distinctive hairstyle he had sported throughout a run that brought three Super Bowl victories, and admitted there had been an element of superstition behind keeping it. Mahomes had wanted a change but resisted because the Chiefs kept reaching and winning Super Bowls.

After Kansas City lost to Philadelphia in February 2025, Mahomes finally went shorter. The Chiefs then went from a 15-2 regular-season record to 6-11, missed the playoffs for the first time since 2014, and recorded their first losing season in 13 years. Mahomes posted a career-low passer rating of 89.6 before a knee injury ended his season.

Ronnie O’Sullivan, then 29, shaved his head overnight during the 2005 World Snooker Championship and returned to beat Ali Carter 13-7, but the change brought less luck in his next match as he led Peter Ebdon 8-2 before losing 11 of the last 14 frames to go out 13-11 in the quarter-final.

At 25, England cricketer Chris Lewis experienced an even more direct consequence after team-mate Devon Malcolm shaved his head during England’s 1994 West Indies tour to raise money for Children in Need. Lewis developed sunstroke and missed the opening match.

Haaland’s experiment is only 90 minutes old — but out of his five shots against Bournemouth, only two were on target, and his failure to score ended a run of five consecutive Premier League appearances in which he had found the net.